Tuesday, March 5, 2013

At Home She Feels Like A Tourist (Sweater Story)

Despite the nod to Gang of Four in this post's title, I think the Daft Punk song is the better soundtrack to the story of the Tourist Sweater. Feel free to have this playing as you read on. If they were all knitting terms, it would perfectly describe what I've done to finish this sweater.

Okay, ready? So when we last left the Tourist sweater, there was a bit of a yarn issue, and I thought I'd try blending the two different dye lots, alternating one row with another, to make it work. But just the thought of that was oppressive. Then, as the ladyfriend and I were having lunch at a cafe in Prenzlauer Berg, I saw a woman wearing a short-sleeved, cowl-necked sweater, with matching arm warmers/gaunlets (like sleeves that weren't attached). Hurrah! A possible solution to my problem. So I went home and unraveled the sleeve I'd sewn and started making short sleeves.

Feeling like I was almost done, I thought I'd try the sweater on. Holy F*! (sorry, Dad) It was too damn long! Was this sweater ever going to work out? Now instead of putting it on a time-out, I just wanted to kill it.

There was no way I was going to rip it back - there was waist shaping involved and that pouch that I'd already knit twice. I would operate on it instead...

This will only hurt a little.

Yes, I cut my sweater. I cut it up along the armpit line and ripped out two inches. And no blood!

"I will now saw this woman in two."

Are you scared? Because I was. But using this nifty tutorial from Knitty, I was able to graft the sweater back together. You'll see in the next couple of photos that there is no evidence of the incision. I feel like the plastic surgeon of sweaters right now.

After taking a couple of inches off the bottom as well, the length was good. I bought some buttons at Idee, which is the craft/hobby department of KaDeWe, and finally finished the sweater. Yes, it is done.

I'm not sure what's up with my expression; that's what you end up with when you're too lazy to have another photo taken.

Can you see where I grafted it back together? I didn't think so.

I'm happy with the sweater (but am over knitting any gauntlets - whatever on that), and actually I think it'll be even more functional now that the weather is starting to warm up. What is (only now) endlessly amusing is that everyone on Ravelry talked about how easy and fast this was to knit up. Oh well.